Rue Rabbit
by JDRalston
Summary: A courageous little bunny, Rue Rabbit rescues his mother with the help of a crabby old chipmunk, a pessimistic crow, a neurotic woodchuck, three flaky sparrows, a cluster of chickens and a loud-mouthed blue jay all while eluding the drool of a big, brown dog and the deadly fangs of Evel Weasel.
1. A Rough Beginning

**Synopsis of Chapter One:**

**Rue Rabbit is a very young Eastern Cottontail bunny living with his family in Mrs. Wilder's yard in rural Michigan. Out playing with his brothers and sisters one day, coyotes attack and Rue's father loses his life to save his last living bunny, Rue.**

© J.D. Ralston 2012

RUE RABBIT – A WILD TALE

By

J.D. Ralston

ONE – A ROUGH BEGINNING

The little bunny stepped all over the mass of brown fur that was his three brothers and two sisters. His momma lay stretched out in their nest, her paws resting near her whiskers and her babies in a pile at her side. There was still enough light left in the day to see the gray-brown of Momma's fur and the speckles of black that dotted her back.

But nobody woke up. He sighed.

The bunny rubbed his whiskers against Momma's side then stuck his tiny pink nose into her plump, soft, white underside. He drew in her scent - a mixture of rabbit, wet grass, the earth and love.

Above him, the wind rustled the patches of dried leaves and twigs that covered their nest. Momma's nest was a shallow bowl she'd scratched out of the ground beneath an evergreen bush. Then she had lined the form with dried grasses and her own soft, shed fur.

He pretended to have an itch in one ear and then the other, scratching and thumping on top of the bunny pile. One of his sisters groaned and one brother said, "Cut it out!"

But nobody woke up.

"Come on, everybody, let's go outside and play," he said.

The little bunny lay down across his brothers and sisters then rolled to the ground. "Wheee!" he shouted.

But his three brothers and two sisters were happy to simply stay there all evening sleeping and drinking their mother's milk.

"Guys! Come on! Let's play tag before it gets too dark." He poked one of his brothers with his paw then hopped outside.

Momma lifted her head and smiled with her round brown eyes. "Go play with your brother, little ones." She got up and the little bunnies fell to the ground, two of them upside down. They moaned and groaned and stuck each other with their elbows and knees, trying to get up onto their feet.

"Go on now." She began washing her ears.

"Aw right," one sister said. She yawned.

"Okay," said a brother.

The bunnies crawled through a hole in the nest covering then scurried out from beneath the bush.

"Boo!" said the little bunny and he laughed when his sister screamed.

"Tag, you're it," she said as she touched the little bunny. Then she laughed at him while she raced across the backyard, and he chased after her.

"No fair!" he shouted happily.

The bunnies hopped and skipped across Mrs. Wilder's backyard, dodging around the trees and skittering beneath the bushes. The spring rain had fallen gently earlier that day, washing the earth new and the little bunny loved the coolness of the mud when it squished between his toes. They were having such a good time that none of them noticed the coyote as it crept out of the woods. The woods that edged the back of Mrs. Wilder's yard with beautiful old tall trees.

Until they heard their father. He shouted with such a sternness and hardness in his voice that they all instantly stopped and turned toward him. The little bunny was surprised to see him; he had not realized he was home.

"Bunnies!" he yelled. "Get home this instant."

His brothers and sisters began to run home, but the little bunny looked toward the woods. There was a pack of coyotes, their tongues hanging from their mouths and their shaggy fur barely covering their bones. They were hungry from the long winter. They had

seen the bunnies and this made them desperate enough to cross into the Wilder's territory.

The coyotes stepped out of the woods then ran after the bunnies. Momma burst from beneath the bush and yelled at her bunnies to come quickly. It felt to the little bunny as if a tornado of fear and danger were swirling all around him as his brothers and sisters raced around the yard, this way and that way, and the coyotes chased them. He looked at Momma and she yelled again, "Come here, little bunny!"

He swallowed. To reach her, he had to run in the midst of the tornado.

And then, he heard a terrible small scream and saw his father charge toward a coyote. The coyote had its mouth full. His father rammed into the coyote's legs a couple of times but could not get it to drop his bunny. The coyote slunk back into the woods to eat its dinner.

Another terrible small scream came from somewhere very near to the little bunny. "Get home, son!" said his father as he raced past him.

The little bunny looked right at Momma then ran as fast as he could to her. He did not look toward the other terrible small screams that seemed to be coming from all over the yard, like an awful nightmare you cannot escape.

With her nose, Momma shoved the little bunny beneath the bush. "Stay very still," she said.

They crouched beneath the bush, hidden but still able to see. The small terrible screams had stopped and all but one of the coyotes had slunk back into the woods. That

coyote began trotting toward Momma's nest. He and Momma backed up farther beneath the bush.

"Ssshhh," Momma said to him.

His father raced after the coyote. He went beneath its legs then ran a circle around it. The coyote kept coming toward the nest even though his father kept racing around it. The coyote got so close to the bush that the little bunny could only see its muddy feet and half of its pale brown legs. The coyote was panting and sniffing and searching around. He and Momma looked at each other.

Then his father rammed his head into one of its legs and it stopped moving around. His father hopped backwards, away from the bush and the coyote followed him. His father twisted his body to turn around and run, but somehow the coyote managed to step on one of his father's hind legs. This slowed him down. The coyote growled then lunged at his father with its mouth wide open. His father could not escape.

The little bunny closed his eyes and listened to the coyote run away. He and his Momma stayed very still and very quiet for what seemed like a very long time. He looked at Momma. She began to cry very softly. He began to cry also and they sat there together, just the two of them now. The little bunny did not need to be told that his father and his three brothers and two sisters were never coming home.


	2. The Bad Storm

TWO – THE BAD STORM

That night, after they were sure the coyotes would not return, Momma had scratched a new form beneath a very tall silver maple tree in front of the Wilder's house. Now there was a house between her nest and the woods.

Seven sunsets came and went, and the little bunny grew much bigger. But he didn't go outside anymore. And Momma never made him. She would say, "Why don't you go out and play for awhile. Get some fresh air."

"I dunno. I don't feel like it," he would say. "Besides, there's no one to play with."

Then one evening when the darkness came to their nest, the wind moaned. Rumblings of thunder sounded from far off. The bunny pushed his ear against Momma's chest and listened instead to her heartbeat.

"Soon the peeper frogs will sing into the night, Rue," she said. "And you know what that means!" She tickled his ears with her whiskers until he giggled.

"I can leave our nest," he said, but not with much excitement.

"Yes, Rue. You will be grown-up. And then I can show you the pond and the turtles and Mrs. Wilder's garden where delicious snow peas grow on the vine."

"Momma?"

"What is it, honey?"

"Why did you name me Rue?"

"Well, I was hopping in the woods thinking about your father and my other bunnies when the little white flowers of the rue anemone caught my eye. Small as they

were, they brightened the damp, dark forest floor. Small as you are, you have filled my rueful heart with joy."

Rue was quiet for awhile. "Tell me again about my father."

"That his love for you lives on forever, even though he doesn't?" She stroked the spot between his ears with her nose.

"Tell what he was like," said Rue.

"Well, he was very persistent. And very brave. And very handsome. The most handsome rabbit ever." Momma's fur brushed against him as she rolled onto her legs and shook out her tail. Her warmth moved away and the dried grass crinkled beneath her as she sat back on her haunches.

"He didn't back down, did he, Momma?"

"No, Rue. He saved my life and yours. Every other rabbit would've run away."

"But hedidn't."

"No, he didn't." Momma sighed. She gently rubbed her nose all over his face while he sat there.

"Do you think, someday, I could be like him?" he asked.

"I do. But it's up to you to decide what kind of rabbit you're going to be."

"Up to me?"

"Yes, son. Now, lie down, my little snuggle bunny, and I'll make sure you don't get so cold tonight while I'm gone." She pushed her nose into the shed fur and dried grass and piled it all around him. "How's that?"

"Aw right, I guess," he said.

"That's my bunny. I'll be back again after awhile. Go to sleep and before you know it, you'll wake up and I'll be there."

Very slowly, Rue said, "Bye, Momma." His breath moved some of her pile away from his face. The thunder boomed louder and he tried hard to ignore it. He pressed against the bottom of their nest and listened to his least favorite and most favorite noise in the world- the sound of the dried leaves crackling as Momma pushed aside their nest covering then pushed it back. His least favorite when she left him and his most favorite when she returned.

He closed his eyes and went to sleep. Before long, he was dreaming this dream.

The peeper frogs peeped, calling to each other. An owl hooted and the moon shone bright. A hazy fog drifted across a pond and Rue stooped to its edge for a sip of water. A rustle amongst the cattails sounded from behind him. He stayed perfectly still

until it sounded no more. He sipped again. Then up along his back a hot, sticky, smelly-rotten air crept to the tip of his ears.

Grrrrrr!

Rue flipped around, only to stare straight into the glowing yellow eyes of a coyote. Grrrrr! The coyote bared its fangs and snapped its teeth. Behind the coyote were

other coyotes, their mouths hanging open, drool dripping from their fangs and tongues. Their glowing yellow eyes surrounded him.

He flipped back toward the pond then leapt in. The coyotes leapt in after him. He swam but he did not swim fast enough. The pond was very wide and his paws ached. The water waved over his face and stole his breath. The coyotes' paws splashed the water all

around him. The waves grew taller and taller and Rue could not stay above the surface. The water filled his lungs, and he sank to the murky bottom. There were fish down there and turtles and slimy pond plants.

And then the coyotes were running along the sandy bottom of the pond, chasing after Rue. He hopped across the bottom but the water held him back. He fought against it. And just as the coyote was about to bring its jaws down around Rue's head a loud crack split open the pond.

Rue brought his paws back against his chest and opened his eyes. He had managed to fling most of Momma's pile away from his head. "Momma!"

A hot, white light pierced their nest and Momma was not back. The electricity from the lightning crackled along Rue's fur. Bang! Boom! The thunder crashed right over his head. The lightning struck again, so close that the earth shook from its power. The

wind whipped all around him. He dug his claws into the ground and made himself as small as possible. Crash! Boom! Crack!

Every time the lightning cracked the sky, their nest was flooded in the hot, white light. The light burned his eyes. The rain pelted against the nest covering, broke through, and slammed into Rue's back. It was cold and hard. He became soaking wet. He

crouched there, shivering, and thought about his father and the mother he loved more than anything else until the thunder moved away, the lightning stopped and the rain dried up.

Then he fell back asleep.


	3. Bark, Bark, Bark!

THREE — BARK, BARK, BARK!

The heat spread from the center of Rue's back to the tip of his tail then to the tips of his ears. The songbirds sang so loud it was as if they were in the nest with him. The sunshine made the insides of his eyelids bright orange. He coughed from a scratchy throat and tried to bury his head in Momma's pile, away from the morning, but the pile was gone. The breeze floated along his fur and lifted its strands for a second or two. It fluttered through the leaves above him. He could not help but sniff and sniff the sweet smell the breeze carried with it. He tried to open his eyes, but the strong light hurt them.

"Momma," Rue whispered.

He gave Momma a few seconds to answer, since she might just be hopping back. Then he said a little louder, "Momma? Can you hear me?"

Rue rubbed his eyes then opened one after the other. The sunshine made everything glow fuzzy for what seemed like forever. "Momma!" Then a little louder, "Momma!"

The crinkly, gray bark of the silver maple rose up into the light green leaves flittering so very high above him in the pale blue sky. A screech sounded from amongst the wispy clouds, and a chill raced along Rue's spine and deep into his heart. "Momma!" he shouted. "Where are you?"

Rue took one step toward the tree. Their nest covering lay in wet clumps all around him on the bright green grass. Momma's pile of grass and shed fur rolled with the breeze toward a pack of pokey bushes. "Momma! Where are you?"

Momma should have been back by now. She should be sleeping in their nest, snuggled close to Rue.

The outside world was utterly immense. Trees and more trees, acres and acres of trees, shrubs, grass. Trees dressed in flowers, trees of bright green and trees so tall they seemed to reach the sky. Trees with sharp needle branches and pinecones that could fall and squish a bunny so small. So many places Momma could be. How would he ever find her?

He slowly hopped away from their form beneath the silver maple. Everything around him had a different scent. Would he know her scent? Flowers, grass, moist dirt, earthworms, animal scents, bird droppings, humans. He stuck his nose in the damp grass and sniffed for her. It was too confusing.

"Momma!" He sat back on his hind legs and stretched up off the ground, pulling his paws close into his chest.

He wondered if Momma could be underneath the wooden porch on the front of Mrs. Wilder's white farmhouse with green shutters. It looked like a very good place to hide from a storm. A porch swing swayed and its chains creaked, but other than that, the house was quiet.

Rue began thumping his way over to the shadows beneath the porch. He stayed on Mrs. Wilder's lawn and hopped toward the forsythia blooming in the flowerbed in front of the porch. The yellow-capped shrubs had spindly branches with pointed tips and some of those tips scratched at the ground.

Rue pressed himself as flat as possible against the dirt of the flowerbed and began crawling beneath the forsythia. The forsythia ran its points along his fur, and tiny goose pimples spread all over him. Beneath the shrubs, the light cast everything in lemon yellow, even the fat, thick earthworms that slimed through the dirt. But beneath the porch, the wide-open, heavy space was dark and the shadows shifted and shaped into creatures. Were those green eyes staring back at him?

Then he heard a voice chattering from behind him. "Hello there, little rabbit!"

Rue froze. It wasn't safe to run into the green eyes or to speak to the stranger. He gulped.

"You really shouldn't go under there. A rabbit as small as you. The stray cats could get you."

"Momma never said anything about stray cats but I know about stranger danger. You could be a coyote for all I know."

The stranger chuckled. "Clive Chipmunk is my name. But you can call me Jack, all my friends do. If you turn around a little, you might see that it's against my very nature to eat you."

Rue lifted his ears then swiveled them toward the stranger. Chit-chit-chit, he heard. And, chewing. No heavy panting or growling. He sniffed. No rotting-meaty smell. More like Momma's scent, only sour-fruity. Slowly, he turned his head while he kept his right paw stretched to escape under the porch.

Jack was not much bigger than Rue. He had big, puffy, moving cheeks smeared with red juice, and twinkling black eyes circled in creamy white. He sat up on his rear-end, the remains of smushed rhubarb clinging to his sharp claws. "And you might be?"

Rue sat back. "Rue."

Rue admired the dark brown and white stripes that ran along Jack's golden-brown back and up his tail.

Rue looked like every other Eastern Cottontail except that he had a black marking that ruined the white of his cotton tail. Momma said he was unique, but Rue thought his marking was an ugly splotch, something to hide.

Jack's tail pointed up and twitched in rhythm to his words. "Nice to meet you, Rue. Say, you must be the one who's been calling for his mother."

"I don't know where she is." He turned his head toward the porch.

"And you thought she might be under there," Jack said. "It was a nasty storm last night." He licked his claws and chewed while his triangle-shaped nose jigged up and down.

Rue reached his nose toward the porch shadows and sniffed. Jack bent down and sniffed too.

"I doubt that with all the racket you've been making she's still hiding under there." He wrinkled his nose, sniffed the air behind them then frowned.

"Not unless she was hurt. She'd never leave me for good unless something was terribly, awfully wrong."

"Good point." Jack stood on his hind legs and looked all around. He put his paws into the air and stood there. Then he grabbed what seemed like nothing and splashed it against his face. He breathed in deeply through his nose. His mouth began jigging very fast. He stomped one foot and then the other.

"I smell Sugar," he said. He clasped his paws together and frowned even deeper than his frown before. The fur on his back stood straight up and he twitched. His ears twitched, his cheeks twitched, his elbows twitched, his whiskers twitched, even the points on the ends of his claws twitched.

Rue sniffed the air. He smelled the forsythia mostly, but there was another smell. Something inside him said it was danger.

Off in the distance, Rue heard a strange sound.

"Bark, bark, bark," said the sound.

"What's that, Jack?" Rue asked.

"We have to get out of here. Follow me. Run as fast as you can and never look back. No matter what. And don't play dead! Do you understand?"

The "Bark, bark, bark!" sound came closer. Rue didn't move.

"Run, Rue! Or the dog will get you," Jack yelled as he raced across Mrs. Wilder's lawn.


	4. An Enourmous Favor

FOUR – AN ENORMOUS FAVOR

Jack had never rescued a baby bunny from a big brown dog before, so he wasn't very good at it, at first. He scampered through the grass, his tail straight out behind him and across the Wilder's blacktop driveway. He bounded up the stone wall that circled the flower garden in the center of the driveway then dropped down inside his hole. He never checked to see if Rue was right behind him.

Safe inside his burrow, Jack tried to slow his heartbeat with easy breaths of air. He rubbed each of his shoulders against the black, fertile dirt wall of his den then shook off and began grooming himself. "Well, that was a close call, little fellow."

Only Rue didn't answer. Rue didn't make any noise at all. Jack whipped around.

Rue wasn't there!

"Oh, no!" said Jack.

He scurried out of his burrow and onto the stone wall. Rue wasn't in the yard, but Sugar was near the picket fence, in front of a bush. She had her nose and front legs flat against the ground and her tail wagged high in the air.

"Bark, bark, bark!" she said.

Sugar had Rue trapped against the fence! It was all a big game to that rascal, that devil of a dog, chasing the little animals and scaring them to death.

There was no telling when Mrs. Wilder would call Sugar back in. There was no telling what would happen if Sugar got her mouth on Rue.

"I must think quickly," Jack said. "And act even quicker." He scratched the fur between his ears. "Think quickly. Think quickly." His entire body told him to run back inside his hole. "No, I've got to help the little bunny."

A very shiny black crow was perched in an old oak tree - Jack's old friend, Poe.

A long time ago, Jack had helped Poe get out of a very bad situation. It had happened in late summer when the August heat was so heavy most of the animals slept all day. Jack was searching the side of the dirt road for the perfect piece of gravel to aid his digestion.

From the tops of the trees that lined the road, a group of crows cawed. Caw! Caw! Caw! Four crows were perched together on a branch across from a smaller, very shiny crow.

"If you want to be in our gang, you got to kill one," said the biggest crow to the smaller, shiny crow. "We got to know you're tough inside."

"But crows don't kill. They scavenge," whined the shiny crow. "It isn't natural."

"You're a looser, Poe!" the other crow said. "You ain't joining our gang if you can't do it. And if you ain't in our gang, you're our enemy. Your family is our enemy. You'll spend the rest of your life looking over your wing."

Poe hung his head. "All right. I'll do it." He looked down at the road.

The gang leader said, "Go get us that chipmunk down there and you're in."

Poe flew down to the road where Jack stood and landed next to him. Jack looked Poe in the eye and Poe looked down at the ground.

"You're not really going to break the laws of nature to be in some kind of silly crow gang, are you?" Jack asked.

"I can't spend the rest of my life always looking over my wing. I have little brothers and sisters at home." Poe sighed. "The gang will help my mother feed them. My father flew out on us."

"I'm truly sorry to hear that. But, you don't look like a killer. I've seen a hawk and you're not one."

"I'm not a killer. But if I go back up there without you, I'm dead meat. Oh, woe is me, either I'm dead or you're dead! Whatever should I do?"

"Now, now, let's think this thing through. I'm not certain either one of us has to end up dead."

"But we all end up dead, one way or the other. We're born. We die. That's it."

Jack rolled his eyes. "My, you are a gloomy fellow. What about all of the love life has to offer in between our birth and death?"

"Life is more sorrow than it's worth. You love someone and they leave you."

"Sometimes, yes, sometimes they leave you. But there were all those times when they were with you."

Poe shuffled his feet and blinked his eyes. "Making it all worth it?"

"Yes, I think so. Life is love. Love is life," said Jack with a smile.

"If you say so," Poe said. He smiled.

"I'll help you if you promise Jack one thing."

Poe cocked his head and blinked. "What's that?"

"You have to quit the gang if they ever ask you to break the laws of nature again."

"I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a twig right through my eye!"

Then Jack explained his plan to Poe, and they put it into place. Poe pretended to peck Jack. Jack pretended to die. Poe gently picked Jack up in his beak, carried him to the treetop and laid him over a tree branch. Poe got in the gang. With his claws, Poe picked up Jack by the scruff of his neck, telling the crows his brothers and sisters were hungry, and flew away.

Jack opened his eyes. The wind rushed through his whiskers and flattened his ears and filled them with its sound. The earth was so very far away and the clouds so very close. Squirrels seemed no bigger than frogs and butterflies no more than fluttering dots.

The flower garden now clumps of color - red, pink, blue, purple, white, yellow. The clumps swayed together in the wind.

Life had many shapes and patterns. Squares. Rectangles. Circles. Ovals. Intersecting lines. Parallel lines. Curves in the road. Paths that ended. Paths that suddenly began.

After they had landed on Mrs. Wilder's grass, very near to the picket fence where Rue was now trapped, Poe had said, "Jack, I owe you an enormous favor."

Today was the day Jack needed the favor returned. He yelled, "Poe, my dear fellow, I need your help!"

Poe cocked his head in Jack's direction. Sugar lifted her head and for a moment, she looked over at Jack.

"Poe! Hurry! It's a matter of life or death!" shouted Jack.

"Death, you say," cawed Poe as he flew in, landing in front of Jack. "Why you know death is the key to my very survival. They die and I eat." He cocked his head and glinted at Jack with a twinkle in his black eyes.

"Yes, yes, no time for small talk." Jack shook his head at Poe's nonsense. "See where that devil has my small friend trapped against the fence?" He pointed toward Rue then whispered his plan into Poe's ear.

Poe swiveled his head toward the fence and then back to Jack. "If I didn't owe you the favor, my answer would be no. It seems as if you are asking me to give up lunch."

But Jack didn't answer. He was already running to Rue.


End file.
